ing roar as the sea rushed in to claim its own. The roaring,
as of a Niagara, as the waters claimed the ship, rushing down
passageways into the hold, possessing the warship with all the
invincible, speedy might of the sea.

Mingled with this roaring was the shivering, vibratory sound which
Prester Kleig had experienced in his half-dream. The sound was so
intense that it fairly rocked the Secret Room to its furthermost cranny.

For a second the dreadnought, wounded to death, seemed to shudder, to
hesitate, then to move backward as though wincing from her death blow.
It was the pound of the inrushing waters which did it. Then up came the
stern of the mighty ship, as she started her last long plunge into the
depths.

But attention had swung to another warship, on the starboard beam of
which another aero-sub had taken up position. Again the ebon streak of
death from her blunt nose, smashing in and through the warship, directly
amidships, cutting her in twain as though the black streak had been a
pair of shears, the warship a strip of tissue paper.

Up went the prow and the stern of this one, and together, the water
separating the two parts as it rushed into the gap, the broken warship
went down to its final resting place.

* * * * *

Abruptly Professor Maniel swung back to the American planes which had
come back to investigate the activities of the aero-subs, and on the
screen, in the midst of the battle formation into which the pilots had
swept to hurriedly, the Secret Agents could see the faces of those
pilots....

White as chalk with fear, mouths open in gasping unbelief. One man, a
pale-faced youth, was the first to recover. He stared around at his
compatriots, and plainly through the sound apparatus in the Secret Room
came his swift radio signals.

"Attack! Who will follow me against these people?"

His signals were very plain. So, too, were the answers of the other
pilots, and the heart of Prester Kleig swelled with pride as he listened
to the answering signals--and counted them, discovered that every last
pilot there present elected to stay with this youngster, to avenge their
country for this contemptuous insult which had been put upon her by the
rape of Hampton Roads.

Into swift formation they swept, and with these planes--all planes in
use were required by franchise of operating companies to be equipped for
the emergencies of war--swung into an echelon formation, the you